First, he didn’t have a great season last year, and his effort was questioned. A few weeks ago, Mike Mayock dropped him out of his top five linebackers, saying that he “came away unimpressed” and did “not see first round at all.”

Then he arrived in Indianapolis for interviews, a very important part of the process, especially for a player like Burfict with some yellow flags (literally, for late hits) to address about his actions and effort at Arizona State.

From this story from Arizona Central, Burfict blamed officials and his aggressiveness for penalties. In regard to that locker room incident where he punched a teammate last year, “my first instinct was to swing, and everyone thinks I’m the bad guy because my first instinct was to swing on the guy.” Um, yeah, kind of. Then, in regard to his performance last year, he said, “The coaches kind of messed me up. I didn’t know if I would start a game or be benched. It hurt me, but I tried to fight through it.”

Blaming coaches for inconsistent effort or dumb plays, because you weren’t sure if the coaching staff was going to bench you for inconsistent effort or dumb plays? That’s not going to go over well.

He also talked about how he was down to 248 from playing at 260 pounds. Then he went out and ran a 5.09 40 yard dash, at a time when several other linebackers, such as Boston College’s Luke Kuechly, posted much better times and also don’t have all the flags that Burfict carries.